ICE agents stopped and arrested H.L.A.O. while he was waiting for the Shelter Island ferry in Greenport, New York
On February 4, 2026, ICE agents in Greenport, New York, stopped a man identified in court filings as H.L.A.O. while he was waiting for the Shelter Island ferry, arresting and detaining him without a judicial warrant for 22 days. His arrest is one of eight named in the April 2026 class-action lawsuit Benitez v. DHS, which alleges ICE and CBP agents have conducted a systematic pattern of warrantless stops and arrests of Latino residents across New York based on race and ethnicity.
Actors
On February 4, 2026, ICE agents in Greenport, New York, stopped a man identified in court filings as H.L.A.O. while he was waiting for the Shelter Island ferry. The agents arrested and detained him without a judicial warrant. H.L.A.O. was held for 22 days before being released.
His arrest is one of eight documented stops described in the complaint filed April 8, 2026, in the class action Benitez v. DHS, brought by Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road New York, and Covington & Burling LLP. The suit alleges that ICE and CBP agents have carried out a systematic pattern of warrantless stops and arrests of Latino residents across New York City and Long Island, relying on apparent race and ethnicity as the basis for stops in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
Updates
2026-04-08 — Benitez v. DHS filed in EDNY naming this arrest among eight documented instances [1, 2]
Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road New York, and Covington & Burling LLP filed the class action Benitez v. DHS (2:26-cv-02082) in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The complaint documented this arrest alongside seven others as evidence of a systematic pattern of warrantless ICE and CBP stops and arrests targeting Latino residents across New York City and Long Island based on race and ethnicity.
Why we recorded this
ICE agents stopped a man identified as H.L.A.O. while he was waiting for the Shelter Island ferry, with no documented criminal suspicion, before arresting and detaining him for 22 days without a judicial warrant. A public ferry queue is a civilian space; stops in that context based on apparent ethnicity without articulable suspicion violate the Fourth Amendment. This entry records a documented warrantless stop and extended detention of a civilian by federal immigration agents.
Sources
- Legal Aid, NYCLU, Make the Road NY, and Covington & Burling LLP File Class Action Lawsuit Against DHS for Unlawful Stops, Warrantless Immigration Arrests, and Racial Profiling of New Yorkers — Legal Aid Society / NYCLU primary accessed July 26, 2026
- New Lawsuit Accuses ICE of Racially Profiling New Yorkers During Immigration Arrests — The City investigative accessed July 26, 2026
See also
- ICE agents stopped and arrested Darwin Garcia Medrano and his 16-year-old brother at a gas station in Brentwood, New York
- ICE agents stopped and arrested F.R.P. in a Walmart parking lot in Cheektowaga, New York; his wife was arrested in the same incident
- ICE agents stopped and arrested R.C.R. in a Walmart parking lot in Cheektowaga, New York; her husband was arrested in the same incident
- DHS immigration agents arrested F.R.P. and his wife without a warrant in a Cheektowaga Walmart parking lot, complaint alleges
- Immigration officer detained Cheektowaga woman with pending asylum claim for 26 days after warrantless arrest
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